Emaleth
by K.Henderson
Summary: He was towards the stair the second she blinked, fast as light. His pale white hand was on the banister, his purple veins like ropes under the skin. “Good morning Mona.” He said. “Good morning Edward.”


**-Father of the Witch**

_**- Don't own anyone here at all. Don't sue.**_

* * *

_Introduction_

Mona Mayfair, red hair shimmering like fire and eyes as green as jewels in the small photograph, I hadn't thought of a Mayfair in quite a long time, but I surmised, that because I was a child of Julien Mayfair and because I was of Julien Mayfair's many sons. It was because of him that I was tied to the family forever despite my death. I was never to know who I really was, that was neither something my mother had never mentioned nor my father. It was easy enough to uncover when I saw The Man for the first time back in 1983 when one of my many _sisters_, little Mona, had been born. Beautiful Mona and he stood there, almost corporeal with his dark hair and glittering dark eyes ancient clothing, staring at the infant for but a moment. He did that for all of the women Mayfair apparently.

Why did he smile at me like he had smiled at Michael Curry I will never know, his body is buried beneath Deidre's tree along with Emaleth now, from what Michael has told me. I cannot ask Lasher. Michael and I keep in contact, having met with him in the glen where his Morrigan and Ashlar live and make love-the Taltos the last two-this because I had been drawn to the place. The legend of the little people had fascinated me; I had wanted to know of it.

"Mona-she's different." Michael had told me almost weary as he tucked the photo into his pocket, realizing that he'd made a mistake in showing me. He hadn't seen me since he was a child back in the Garden District, standing at the gate at the First Street House. It was a surprise to see me as I was, unchanging. Vampire.

"Wander Slut," I supplied. "I know what they call her, what they say."

He drags on his cigarette and I can catch the glint of the Rolex on his powerful wrist. Would I have looked like this if I would have given the chance to have grown at a human's maturity if I had not caught the sickness to begin with? I am more closely related to Michael then I am to the other Mayfair's it is obvious when you look at us, that Irish blood. "Get to know her yourself, old man, and then you tell me."

"I suppose." I nod. "How is your Rowan?"

He shrugs his great shoulders, ones I could only ever dream of having, and gives a lofty sigh, almost sad. "Rowan died just this spring."

"I'm sorry."

"So am I."

_The house_, I wondered, _what would happen to it now? Would Mayfair and Mayfair take it now that Rowan was gone, now that Mona wanted nothing to do with it?_ I supposed that; _Michael would keep it, Ryan Mayfair would probably see to that and then there was the other Mayfair living in the house, Mary Jane, would it go to her?_

"Yeah it will, Mary Jane will get the house."

_Ah yes, a mind reader must watch my thoughts around this witch-but just the surface thoughts, I _reminded myself_, only cover the surface._

"Are you uneasy Edward?"

_Yes._

"No."

"Sure you're not." He laughs. The humid air, the languid scent of flowers and the perfume of the mortals all around this dark place, ah yes, the scent of living breathing things! I could live here!

"Then why don't you?"

I shrugged, very human very modern.

"How avant-garde." Rosalie would say if she were here, _how so very human_.

"Lestat gives his love to your Rosalie, by the way. He says that he hopes to see her at the Night Island."

I wave my hand, rolling it in the way that tells Michael to either continue or to change the subject. It is hardly something new, Rosalie's affair with the vampire Lestat, Emmett's travels around the world with Jessie and Mael in order to learn the meaning of strength in truth of our existence and the knowledge that he hadn't wholeheartedly understood before. For the longest time I had been at the Night Island with Armand and sometimes without him as he was wont to stay still in any place too long-I was content there. I was wanted, it was my home. But isn't that girl Bella Black your home, the one that got away?

Yes and no. Isabella Marie Swan, the love of my damned existence was my home once upon a happier time when she was young and foolish and helplessly caught in the reverie of first love. And then I disappeared from her life for good after the mother of us all had been obliterated by Mekare, the new Queen of the Damned. The spell over my particular brand of vampire vanished and it seemed that the sun could now take our lives.

I could not subject her to a world of eternal light, and I let her go.

"She's pregnant." I say. "She's having the wolf's baby and she couldn't be any happier about it. I cannot bring myself to see her or rather to allow her to know that I have seen her." I bite my lip, another human trait. "Jacob knows of this and allows it, my way of coping with my eternity."

"What about the family? You're a Mayfair, be about the family."

I shake my head, I cannot. "No, there is too much sullied blood here, too many ghosts, too much to handle. I would go mad you see, to know that the descendants of the witches had done such things and I am not wholeheartedly Mayfair, like you I was given away and raised by another man I called father." The warm coffee cup is in my hands and I wish I could drink it. "It's more Maharet's way, to be about her great family to cope with existence."

"If you're certain."

"Oh, I am very certain, I cannot watch over the Mayfair like Maharet nor can I willingly stay with the Talamasca like you are thinking of asking me."

He squares his powerful shoulders, shocked that I had read him so easily. It is often that we Mayfair, if you can really call us that, forget that we can read the other.

"So you know," the statement is said laced with humor. "that they came to me seeking you."

"Yes," I answered, although I eyed the pretty waitress. I could smell the scent of pure blood from between her legs and my mind swam with visions of taking that blood within my mouth, the girl sighing in ecstasy beneath my tongue... "can we leave here?" I was becoming visibly uncomfortable, hungry.

"Sure. We'll go to the house."

We stood, paid for our drinks and walked out into the hot night air of Magazine Street; I caught the eyes of the girl and smiled.

* * *

The house was positively ancient and beautiful-much before my time more like something that Carlisle would have liked and would probably had been enchanted with the bauble lights and with the grand staircase and the mirrored room. It smelled sweet, floral. It was the kind of scent that seduced you, a very heady love spell the smell of The Man, of course.

"So," I take a seat on one of the old French chairs. The fire is glowing in the hearth and Michael makes a striking figure as he leans against the mantle showing of those enviable limbs, even at his age of 61. "where is our wonderful Mary Jane?"

_Fontevrault._ His mind tells me. _Mary Jane was in Fontevrault, remaking it, creating it, making sure that it was better then it had ever been._ I saw easily the beautiful buxom blonde girl from a memory-lying on the white linen of the bed. Legs opened, bared creamy and tanned and nipples peaked beneath Michael's touch, the voice the warmth the need.

Had the Mayfair family no decency at all not to sleep with their own when now they know the horrible outcome if a Mayfair woman were to become pregnant?

"I honestly don't know." Michael answered. "You would do well not to underestimate your own genes. You may be a vampire but you are still a Mayfair man, and the Mayfair men with the giant helix always falls prey to the women of the family."

"The giant helix, good God, Michael, do you honestly believe I have it?"

"You're a witch if I ever seen, so yeah, you have it."

I didn't doubt his words.

"So I can make the Taltos then? This is interesting." I said. "I could imagine it, a child with my vampirism, a Taltos with my power. Or would the Taltos gene breed true, would the child be a normal Taltos with no vampirism aftereffect at all?"

He shrugged powerful shoulders, he didn't know, didn't care to know. Two children dead because of Lasher, a son lost in the womb to become Lasher and Rowan's child, the innocent Emaleth. He had long since given up the fantasy of having any children at all I wished I could weep for him.

"But that would be a waste of blood tears, Edward, to cry for me." He said dismissively closing the subject of the Taltos and children with a great sigh. "I'm off to bed I think." He said. "You can stay here tonight, I've gotten a coffin ready for you in the room upstairs, it was Mary Beth's room and I can't sleep in there anymore."

Mary Beth? Oh right, his older sister, the mother of Carlotta, Lionel and Stella-oh he remembered Stella! His very first secret love, his sister Stella!

"See, you aren't averse to the Mayfair in you, falling in love with your half sister's daughter who is also your _other_ half sister/niece...right?" Michael ruffled his hair. "Jesus, this family and it's twisted family tree!"

I had to agree. "Julien and his twisted family tree, his own creation and his other son, my brother Courtland whom I never knew; he helped with that didn't he? Isn't he father to Rowan?"

"Yes he is."

Possibly one of the youngest of Julien's children and now the only one left alive, how ironic! The uncared for child, the tossed aside child, the completely unwanted and unloved by Julien and the one to live-the one to continue on now forever. I was probably the ninth sibling in Julien's long line of children or the eighth...maybe...I wasn't so sure.

"I think you're the youngest right after Sister Bridget Marie's child Michael O'Brien also born in 1901 right? You're the youngest of Julien Mayfair's children, Great Oncle Edward." So I was the tenth child then?

"It is rather daunting, the family history." I added before he left the room. "Daunting and eerily seductive, I would love to get to know them, my many nieces' and nephews' but there is always a threat isn't there?"

The question lay heavy in the old front room, there was no Michael there to listen to me however, his thoughts were running, I could hear him through his mind and he did agree, wholeheartedly-oh yes, of course the threat.

* * *

27 years old, loveless and utterly alone! Well, maybe not alone when you're a Mayfair but still, it can get pretty lonely even in a big family like that or so she often thought. Currently seated in the back of the limousine wearing her constricting clothing, the black suit that was fashionable maybe but not really comfortable, Mona found herself thirsting for home. Or First Street-same thing.

She wondered how Michael was now that Rowan was gone and she wondered about Lestat whom Rowan eventually fell in love with. How unfair of Rowan, to want too much from two men but in the end she had never really ended up with either. Michael was always distant and Lestat had turned her down for the fact that Mona, whom he also refused giving eternal life to, needed her like the rest of the family.

Was Michael uncomfortable with Lestat, knowing that his wife had wanted him, that she was ready to give away her life, her husband? But it was unfair to think such things, after all, Mona was a pro at egotism inheriting it and completely wanting of everything and tragic because her precious Morrigan had left her. But Morrigan was made from Mona's childishness and her stupidity because Mona had wanted Michael with a child's selfishness and what Mona wants eventually Mona got. She had been 13.

She knew from Mary Jane that Michael hadn't been that lonely. Mayfair women had flooded the house, wanting him and he stupidly fell into their spell. The lust, everything so easily and it was hard to picture Michael saying no, of course. He was alone, his wife had died and the woman hadn't been much of a wife to him in over ten years anyway. They had amicably lived together, had sex and had been each other's companion.

As for love? Mona wasn't sure that there was any left between Rowan and Michael enough. And then she thought of Quinn-her lost love, the one she wanted to leave humanity for. She felt silly because of it now realizing that there was too much to leave behind that she wasn't willing to part with.

_But you wanted it_, she thought, _you wanted to be with Quinn you wanted that adventure!_

Again the egoist in her spoke. She was disappointed in herself, she should be made of stronger stuff and she was an adult for crying out loud! She had to look at it realistically-she was a businesswoman, she was designee now that her daughter Morrigan had 'died', she had a newer and busier life. But she wanted romance she wanted to be in love, so in love that she would burst from it!

The limousine pulled into First Street and quickly without any assistance from Cullen, her driver, Mona made her way out of the car and quickly into the house thinking about love and her own stupid self indulgence. Of course, anyone wanted to be in love and Mona could fall for anyone any time.

It was that she wanted it to be special, different she deserved nothing but. Again the old egotism.

"Hello Michael." She called up the grand staircase. The house was still beautiful and in one piece-the floor boards still shimmering with their polish. It still smelled like him, like Lasher. Overbearingly sweet and she had to take gulp from her mouth and remind herself that nothing could happen here again.

"Guess he's asleep." She said to herself. She lifted her hand to the clip in her hair and with a flick her red hair tumbled past her shoulders in thick curls. Half heartedly relaxed she then went to remove her heels, the blazer of her suit and then the zippers of her skirt. The help wasn't here, not at this hour and Michael had to be asleep. It wouldn't matter if she walked around naked! Not like he hadn't had her that way before. "What's decency to me anyway?"

She shimmied out of the skirt, draped it over the chair closest to her, a richly colored stool. Her pantyhose joined soon after, she was now clad only in a lace camisole and her red panties. "So hungry!"

"There's a loaf in the refrigerator."

The voice was smooth, deep and seductive just a bit gruff. Chicago based maybe? But then that was the least of her problems anyway. Someone was watching her in the house, someone that she was sure she didn't know. What if Michael wasn't here what if this person broke into the house? Would he rape her? Essentially her back was to him but she still felt violated that a stranger was watching her in such a state of undress.

"You can relax Mona Mayfair." He said. "I'm a friend of Michael's." _And I'm not here to hurt you. _His mind said_. I wouldn't dream of it honey, you're far too young!_

"Young? As if." She mumbled only to hear deep laughter. Turning very slowly Mona came face to face with the most beautiful man she had even met-well, maybe not as beautiful as Lestat but close enough.

He had golden eyes, porcelain white skin and messy brown hair. He was taller then her six foot easy and had the most egotistical grins she had ever seen for someone who had to have at least just finished high school.

"Oh you wound me, I am much more likable then you may think and self deprecating." He was in front of her, not a foot away in an instant. "Much older too."

_Vampire!_

He extended his hand to shake hers. "Edward Cullen. It's nice to see you again."

"Again?" Mona asked him. When had she ever met him?

"Your date of birth of course, it was during the time that I had wanted to know more about my father's family." He smiled. "Your Oncle Julien is my father."

_Oh well, that was surprising._ Oncle Julien had a son that was a vampire, how had she not ever known this? And he said that he was a friend of Michael's?

"I met him during my travels," he said. "the glen-I had gone to see the little people and I met Michael there."

_Morrigan, did he know her._

"Yes I met her, beautiful woman, infinitely kind and quite unafraid of me...despite her weary lover who could not stomach me much. I frightened him, poor Ashlar."

"I see that you can read my mind," Mona crossed her arms across her chest a little less then thrilled that she was in her underwear in front of a vampire that, by sheer coincidence, was related to her. "a Mayfair trait."

"And common in vampires apparently." He added shrugging his shoulders and shoving his ice cold hands into the pockets of his coat. "But enough about me, Mona. How are you?"

"You can read my mind, tell me what it is you can get from it."His gaze penetrated her, keeping her grounded in their intensity and innocence because she was sure that he was innocent in some way-even beings like Armand that had wickedness were still children if made young and Edward could not be more then at least 18. "Presumptuous little Mona." He said. "I am not a child."

_Not presumptuous if I'm right._

"I am not." He said again. "I am off to "bed", the dawn is approaching." He told her.

"Oh yeah, the sun."

"Yes, the sun." He was towards the stair the second she blinked, fast as light. His pale white hand was on the banister, his purple veins like ropes under the skin. "Good morning Mona Mayfair."

"Good morning Edward Mayfair." She said before he vanished up the dark stairs as light gave way to dawn peeking in through the large windows of First Street. It was six o'clock.

* * *

**_Cullen is Mona's driver from the books. _**

**_The year is 2010 (this year) so Mona is 27 years old. _**

**_Edward was born the same year as Stella Mayfair-I decided to make him a child of Julien's from early on since it wouldn't be wholeheartedly unrealistic anyway. Stella was born in October of 1901, Edward was born in June of the same year and right in between Michael O'Brien was born, although I'm not really sure the year he was born anyway since I didn't find a specific date. I improvised and made the three of them born in the same year since they've different mothers' and Julien was such a playboy anyway._**

**_Edward is the oldest living Mayfair and well, since I'm not entirely sure about his genes since he's "dead" but still pretty much walking around like he's alive...I allowed for basic humanity in him such as the discussion of his genes. Edward, because he is a child of incest (will get through to that in the next installment and believe me it is a dozy if there was ever was one) so it is highly probably that he inherited the giant helix like Michael-thus he would be a very powerful witch, like Julien._**

**_Edward had ever only seen Lasher twice on the date of Mona's birth and the day he had first met Michael which, coincidently was the day that Lasher showed himself to Michael choosing him (Read the Witching Hour, Lasher and Taltos-you will not be disappointed!)_**

**_Rosalie and Emmett have moved on from each other for the moment in this story. Rosalie has been with Lestat for a short while and it will be apparent that at the moment Emmett is involved with Jessie Reeves and Mael (it gets complicated)._**

**_The sparklpires no longer have the ability to go out into the sun nor the ability to never sleep. The moment that Akasha was destroyed so was the magic allowing the select few with the 'rare blood' to survive in otherwise harsh environments to other vampires. (Will be explained further down the line)_**

**_ If you're wondering about Jasper and Alice, they are still together and in the night island with Daniel Malloy (the journalist who met Louis de Pointe du Lac and wrote his biography)_**

**_Review, don't flame please. This began as a way to clear the writers block-it has become more. It wont be updated as quickly, more like once every two weeks as I finish my HP and the Real Girl story first!_**

**_Hope you have enjoyed this chapter and this idea._**

**_-Karin_**


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